Friday, September 14, 2012

If I see another permutation of the name "Po" in a BG, I think I'll scream.

I should have been checking whether screen caps are back working so I could have caught it, but there was one Arathi Basin run wherein two of the participants were named Po (one on each side). Every other BG I'd run from a period of Tuesday through early Thursday has had a different "Po" as well. At first I thought it was the same player, but noooo.....

All these Kung Fu Panda references, and we haven't even gotten to the Pandaren yet.

***

In case you haven't been in a low level BG lately, Disco Priests are the current OP class right now. You know how much fun it is to have 4+ people beating on a Prot Pally without much success? That Pally has now been replaced by the Disco Priest. I couldn't count the number of times multiple people ganged up on a Disco Priest in a BG, only to have the Priest emerge unscathed.

I'm sorry, but there's something very wrong about a Clothie being able to handle people like that. We're talking about a Priest, not a Jedi.

Disco priests have suddenly become so popular in the entry level BG range that their numbers are approaching 'DK in Outland' levels. I was in an Arathi Basin BG on Wednesday where there were six Disco Priests on the Alliance side, and four on the Horde side. And who topped the kill charts in that BG? The Disco Priests. All of them.

***

My slowness issue seems to have been corrected in the latest 5.0.5 patch, although a perusal of the patch notes didn't reveal anything specific to my problem. Unfortunately, the washed out effect is still there, despite me tweaking the graphics settings like crazy.

As is typically the case in software, my issues are more likely "artifacts" or "features" as opposed to bugs. I haven't come across anything new, but I guess we'll see what comes up.

***

In TOR, I managed to provide an interesting bug case for the devs.

I'd created a Trooper, and while she was working on her initial class quest on Ord Mandell, I'd stumbled upon the previously bugged mission The Ambush. Well, I muddled through it, but afterwards the thing refused to complete, but at the same time, I was given the next mission in the sequence. Therefore, I've got two quests from the same chain sitting in my Mission Log, and I can't complete the one because of interference from the other. The devs have tried a few things --especially since they fixed that mission on Tuesday's down time-- but they're still scratching their heads over my Trooper's conundrum. I presume they could manually intervene with my toon and correct it manually, but they probably want to figure out how it got there so it doesn't happen to other people.

Considering I'm playing my Trooper as a complete no-nonsense sort, she would not take kindly to this situation. (Think Sergeant Mack on Taris in the bonus series, and you get the idea.)

***

Some months into Cata, I'd stated how tactical Vashj'ir was for ranged DPS was, and how liberating it was for a Mage to have that vertical dimension to work from. When you go straight from Wrath zones to Vashj'ir without stopping to gear up, the Cata 'jump' meant you had to take it easy and work a pull at a time until you got yourself a complete set of baseline Cata green gear. This was a bit of a sea change from what people were used to leveling up through Wrath, although the Storm Peaks and Icecrown did have a bit of that tactical feel to it.

To a lesser extent, that tactical feel is what it's like leveling out in the field for TOR, although it feels like that on a more consistent basis. WoW --especially in the post-5.0.4 world-- seems built for steamrolling over mobs out in the field.

Now, a game like Age of Conan, however, is much more unforgiving. And brutal.

I was reminded of that when I returned to my Barbarian and worked a bit on some quests in Old Tarantia. Unlike WoW and TOR (and LOTRO, for that matter), AoC does not go in for so-called 'heroic combat'. You definitely have to work your way patiently through mobs if they're at-level, and more than one mob at a time often spells doom to your player. The AoC mobs are also much MUCH more sensitive to activity nearby, and will aggro from a much greater distance than in WoW or TOR.

These little touches of realism keep me grounded after playing sessions of "Jump into the fray and kill them all!!!" fighting found in WoW or TOR. It also helps my leveling experience out in the other two games, because I play more conservatively and patiently.

Perhaps I'm onto something here, because I do get a lot of satisfaction playing different MMOs, and I can enjoy them for what they are. From my perspective, they complement each other, because I'm not in a rush to be the first or the absolute best. I'm not trying to be that hard core raider slogging through hard modes, but rather just having fun puttering around in different worlds.

Now, if someone will get around to creating an MMO version of Lankhmar....

2 comments:

I'm afraid your trooper's problem isn't that unique, as my baby trooper on Drooga's has the exact same issue. I was hoping that this week's patch would fix it, but no luck. Level 3 is a kind of sucky place to be stuck at!

As for the WoW PvP, I'm surprised to see people jump on the FTOM bandwagon so soon after the patch, but I guess it doesn't take that long to make a new char these days. x.0 patches are always complete madness in terms of class balance, alas.

I suspect that the FTOM is easy to get a hold of when you're at low level BGs; it only takes an hour or two to get to L11 and be eligible for BGs. It could also be people who re-specced their twinks from Shadow, but I suspect that's less likely. In Cata, low level BGs were filled with Shammys, Rogues, Druids and Hunters; you took your life into your hands if you were a clothie.

As for your baby Trooper, that sucks. I'm hoping that they figure out what to do so I can pass that along for people to put into a ticket.